1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of computer systems and more particularly to user interfaces for computer systems and to methods and apparatuses for implementing user interfaces for organizing information in a computer system.
2. Prior Art
Prior art computer systems for organizing information typically fall into two types of filing systems. These filing systems are often implemented as part of the operating system of the computer system and are therefore provided as a basic utility to the user of the system to allow the user to organize information in a manner desired by the user. The two types of systems referred to above are the flat file system and the hierarchical file system.
In the flat file system, the computer stores all files (e.g. documents) at one level of hierarchy such that the user when examining these files sees all files at this level. In other words, the system does not discriminate between files which the user may have put in a folder or a subdirectory and files which are not in folders or subdirectories. This type of flat filing system is similar to a desk where all documents on the desk are spread out with none in any folders or other containers. Clearly, such a filing system becomes cumbersome when the number of documents becomes large. For example, if the user is searching for a particular document on the system, the user may have to search through a long list of documents in order to find the desired document.
Hierarchical filing systems on computers attempt to improve filing systems by providing a hierarchy of folders or subdirectories into which the user may store information, such as text documents. Examples of hierarchical filing systems are well known in the prior art, including a hierarchical filing system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,945,475. In these hierarchical filing systems, the user will file a document into a folder which may itself be within another folder. Looking for any documents within a first folder will require opening the first folder after opening the second folder which contains the first folder. In this manner, the user is not presented with a bewildering number of documents as in the flat filing system and the user""s files are maintained in an orderly and systematic way within the hierarchy specified by the user. An example of this hierarchical filing is shown in FIG. 2 of the U.S. Pat. No. 4,945,475 wherein documents 21 and 22 are within folder 20 which itself is within folder 18 which is also stored in another folder, folder 17. Thus, in order to view documents 21 and 22 the user must direct the computer system to examine the contents of the subdirectory represented by folder 20 by specifying the full address of folder 20 (in the case of a non-graphical user interface) or by opening the series of folders necessary to obtain a view of the folder containing the desired documents (in the case of a graphical user interface). Current versions of the Finder on the Macintosh computer systems from Apple Computer are examples of hierarchical filing systems with graphical user interfaces, and other such filing systems with graphical user interfaces are well known.
While these hierarchical filing systems allow the user to specify a structure within which to file (and hence store) information in order to avoid the clutter of a flat filing system, the hierarchical structure forces the computer user to be as organized as possible in filing information. If the user, as is often the case, has difficulty in filing documents because of the difficulty in deciding the proper categories of the document (e.g. the document does not clearly apply to any current category of filing where the category is implemented by having a folder or subdirectory for the category) then the user is typically most comfortable allowing the document to appear in the upper most directory of the hierarchy. As more and more documents which are stored in the computer system memory are left in the highest directory due to the difficulty in filing those documents, the user begins to have a bewildering clutter of documents in that highest directory, which then makes the system act as if it were a flat filing system (at least to the extent of the highest directory or to some other directory/subdirectory where the user is placing documents which are difficult to file away). It should be also noted that the difficulty in filing documents in a computer system also affects the way the user interacts with the computer in that the user attempts to avoid the difficult work involved in filing a document which is hard to categorize. This leads to procrastination or avoidance of the task. This tends to result in the computer becoming cluttered with documents which are hard to categorize or otherwise file or the user does not attempt to place the documents on the computer system at all because of the realization that they will be difficult to organize. This effect tends to negate the advantages of a filing system having a graphical user interface, and particuarly a hierarchical filing system with a graphical user interface.
The problems discussed above are particularly troublesome in the case of mail documents (e.g. electronic mail documents) which have not been read by the user or have only been glanced at. By their nature, these documents are most difficult to categorize and file away because the user is not fully familiar with these documents. It will be appreciated that the computer user is responsible for appropriately filing all items; the system offers little assistance in this often tedious task.
The prior art has not provided solutions to deal with these problems. For example, Malone has studied the way people work in their physical offices and has noted the significance of piles of documents in these physical offices, and has discussed the implications for the design of electronic office information systems which might use conventional office management tools, such as piles, in a computer based information system. See, Malone, T. W., How do people organize their desks? Implications for the design of office information systems, ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems, Volume 1, Number 1, January 1983, Pages 99-112. Malone however does not describe how such a computer system would be implemented nor the graphical user interface involved in dealing with such piles or browsing such piles and other activities relating to these piles.
The present invention provides an improved filing system with a graphical user interface which allows users to organize information into piles or collections of documents and assists the user in organizing these collections of documents.
The invention provides a method and apparatus for organizing information in a computer system, particularly one having a graphical user interface which includes graphical representations of documents. The apparatus of the invention displays graphical representations of a plurality of documents each of which may be manipulated by the user by positioning a system cursor over one of the graphical representations (e.g. Icon) and signalling to the computer to select the document for some operation specified by the user. In the method of the invention, the user creates a pile (or collection of documents) by positioning the cursor (for example, a pointer) over one graphical representation of a document and then selecting that document and moving the graphical representation of the document (by moving the cursor) over to another graphical representation of another document and then depositing the first document on top of the second document in order to create a pile. The system will typically display a graphical representation of the pile which is different than the graphical representation of each document separately and after a pile is created, the original graphical representation of each document in the collection will typically no longer be displayed. A side-ways view of the graphical representation of the document replaces the original graphical representation of the document, and the side-ways view of the graphical representation is located in the graphical representation of the collection. The user may then browse through the pile by positioning the cursor at an item in the pile for a predetermined period of time to reveal a proxy within a viewing cone for the item positioned under the cursor. After the user creates a pile, the system may display a base (or plinth) under the pile to further indicate to the user that the collection of documents is a pile and to allow the user to select the pile as a group. The user may then select the pile for further action by pointing the cursor to the base of the pile.
The apparatus of the invention includes a processing means, such a microprocessor which is coupled to a cursor controlling device, such as a mouse and is coupled to a display means such as a video display screen and is also coupled to memory (e.g. RAM or a hard disk) for storing documents maintained in the filing system of the computer. The cursor control device, such as a mouse, typically includes a means for controlling the position of the cursor on the display screen and also includes a signal generation means, such as a switch which is mechanically coupled to a button which is depressed by the user to signal to the computer to make a selection of an item which is positioned under the cursor.
The system and method of the invention provide the user with various ways to organize piles and to manipulate piles stored in the filing system of the computer. For example, the filing system may be used to automatically file new documents into the appropriate pile according to criteria specified by the user or according to the internal contents of the document relative to the contents of a particular pile. The invention also provides a way for the user to visualize the contents of a pile according to various criteria (e.g. date), such as using visual cues such as color. The appearance of the graphical representation of the pile (e.g. dynamic or static icon of the pile) provides further information to the user, including the texture, thickness, and color of the various documents within the pile. Moreover, the user may specify to the system that it is the user""s preference to have system created piles look neat and user created piles look disheveled. The system may also, at the users request, create subpiles from an original pile (or any set of selected documents such as documents within a folder) according to criteria specified by the user or determined or suggested by the system.
Another aspect of the present invention is an apparatus and method for providing an internal representation of the contents of a pile, which representation is used as a criteria for organizing documents and folders within the pile. This internal representation is also used when the system automatically files documents at the user""s request or automatically when a new or modified document appears in the filing system of the computer. The internal representation may also be used when the system creates subpiles from an original pile or when searching for documents in the filing system and for other operations relating to the present invention. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, each document is provided with a vector which is representative of the words contained in the document and each pile includes a representation, such as a vector, which embodies the collective contents of the pile. The vector between a document and a pile may be compared for the purpose of determining the relatedness/similarity of the document to the pile for purposes of filing or other operations described as part of this invention.